I read the Washington Post article series “The Damage Done” by Caitlin Gibson [click].  Although the piece was well researched and well written, the bottom line query is simply the wrong question: “What would cause a wealthy, white, young adult from a two-parent home become a heroin addict?”  The following was presented as a tragic end to one young woman’s life.

For the first time, she went alone. She turned into a rundown neighborhood lined with chain-link fences and dilapidated brick rowhouses off Gwynns Falls Parkway. She found her usual source. The transaction was quick.

Behind the wheel, parked in a seedy neighborhood, Anna shot up, then started home. She made it two blocks, to a red light, before the rush overcame her. She slumped forward.

Forty-five minutes passed in the middle of an intersection in an open-air drug market, with Anna’s foot mercifully resting against the brake pedal. Her car was rifled through, her purse dumped out and the money in her wallet stolen. All four car doors hung wide open when police found her, unconscious, face down on the steering wheel, the engine running.

I believe it to be incredibly tragic that an individual who has all the privileges life in the United States may offer exchanges the opportunities of a lifetime for the temporary pleasures of a needle.  I find it far more tragic, however, that we have incubated and delivered a society in which a young woman may die in the middle of an intersection without the comfort of a caring neighbor, or that another young woman may die in her bedroom while her boyfriend frets over the potential loss of his own comforts refusing to make even the slightest attempt to assist his “love.”

I struggle often with faith.  I wonder if God is real and if Jesus is who he said he was, the one who his disciples worshipped enough to die for and preached far and wide.  Then I remember that Jesus told a story about depraved indifference [click] when he walked amongst us.  The end of the story is a command that bears import and authority to this day, “Go and do the same.” [click]  In two thousand years, with all of our so-called advancement, we are still as wretched as the characters walking down a deserted road.   The one and only solution remains.

Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift!